Persistent contaminants such as heavy metals and organochlorine compounds are transported from distant sources to the Arctic by oceanic and athmospheric currents.

Natives inhabiting the Arctic can be exposed, because they exist at the highest trophic level of the arctic aquatic food chain, along which biomagnification of contaminant reviewed the data available on heavy metal and organochlorine body burden in natives from different regions of Nunavik (northerm Quebec) and assessed the potential risk of health effects.

In addition, we investigated the relationship between each contaminant plasma level and omega-3 fatty acid content of plasma phospholipid, a surrogate measure for aquatic food consumption.

Cadmium exposure appears to be unrelated to the consumption of species from the aquatic food chain (r=0.0004 ; P=0.99), whereas PCBs and mercury were (r=0.49 and 0.52, respectively ; P<0.0001).